Our investigation has so far been limited to what we can see from above the surface of the liquid; nor perhaps would it occur to any one acquainted only with so much as we have yet examined that it might be worth while to look below the general level of the surface. The discovery, however, that when the splash is made by a solid sphere very remarkable phenomena, which will be described in the next chapter, take place below the surface, led at a much later date to a similar examination in the case of a liquid drop.

A suitable arrangement of the apparatus in the dark room is shown in the accompanying diagram (Fig. 16).

The water into which the drop is to fall is placed in a thin glass vessel AB, with parallel sides. (An inverted clock-shade makes a very convenient vessel.) The water fills the vessel to the brim, and is allowed to overflow it in a steady stream, thus presenting a surface which, being perpetually renewed, is maintained perfectly clean. Close behind the vessel is a plate P of finely roughened glass, on which the light from the spark-gap F, in front of its concave reflector M, is thrown by means of the condenser lens L taken from an optical lantern. This provides a very uniformly illuminated background against which the splash is viewed by means of the camera C, whose optic axis is horizontal, either a little below the level of the liquid surface or at that level. By having it just at the level of the surface we secure simultaneous pictures of what is going on both above and below the surface. There is, to be sure, a narrow band or region of confusion stretching across the photographs in which the images obtained by reflection, both external and internal, overlap the direct images, and it should also be mentioned that the two pictures will not be quite in focus together, for the optical effect of the water, through which the part below the surface is viewed, is to bring the image forward.

The photographs of Series IV were obtained in this way from the splash of a drop of water weighing 0·176 grams falling 40 cm. into water. (The same splash as that of Series Ia.) The perfectly spherical form presented by the cavity below the surface is very remarkable. In the present case, this spherical cavity when at its deepest, as in Fig. 5, would contain about fifty of the original drops, and in other cases—e.g. with a drop of 1/4 the volume, falling from 177 cm.—the cavity would contain as many as 360 of the original drops.

In Figs. 5, 6, and 7 the depth of the cavity is nearly constant, but the diameter is steadily increasing. The spherical form, however, is still maintained. The last figure shows the central column just beginning to rise.

SERIES IV

The splash of Series Ia viewed below the surface.

There can be no doubt that the liquid of the original drop is spread out in an excessively thin lining over the interior of this sphere. The reader has seen for himself part of the evidence in the streaks of milk that are carried up the inner walls of the crater when a milk-drop falls into water (Series II); in the streaks of lamp-black that are carried there when the drop is of milk, and it may here be mentioned that other photographs that cannot be reproduced here have enabled me to trace the gradual deformation of the drop into this thin layer and show that it passes through configurations like Figs. 17, 18, and 19.

It appears possible that the study of this remarkable spherical excavation may afford a clue that will lead to a solution of the very difficult hydro-dynamical questions involved, and the matter is still being investigated.

[F] The information conveyed in this chapter was first published in a communication to the Mathematical and Physical Section of the British Association at Leicester in 1907.